Nearly all so-called civilized people set to work to cram the minds of
their children, at the first indication of any degree of intelligence,
with a religious bias such as they themselves have inherited or have
been taught. Then the intellect must be shaped, forced and driven into
accepted moulds, and the human being is considered ready to be turned
out into the world to fight the battle which everyone, in one way or
another, must fight all along the way of human life--to begin to test
the value of the ideas and principles with which the soul has been
furnished to meet all the exigencies incident to the pilgrimage from
birth to the final exit from this state of being. It has taken
uncounted ages to produce the perfected types of physical humanity we
see on earth today. Here Nature calls a halt, saying: "As the
handmaid, the co-worker with your Creator, I have brought you along to
the point where you look and seem almost as gods. There is in each of
you a divine ego--a thought of your Creator--a sure guide to
perfection. To reach this goal must be now your constant endeavor.
There is a spiritual body, the outgrowth of the physical."
Thousands of children, too young to choose for themselves, are being
fettered in spirit by the chains of old, effete superstitions; their
intellects are being stultified by the absorption of narrowing creeds
and vulgarizing ideas of God and his universe. There are numbers of
Spiritualists and "liberal" men and women who expose the tender minds
of their children to these same influences for society's sake, knowing
though they do, from hard experience, what an effort it costs to free
the mind of such serious bias, and re-educate it aright.
* * * * * *
The noblest teaching is that which puts us _en rapport_ with our own
inner, unspoken and unrecognized perceptions. No truth, however
manifested, can adjust itself to our soul's needs, save as it finds in
us a response through that preparation which comes from a certain
degree of previous knowledge.